Other views from South Carolina

At least one Republican U.S. senator is ready to try to tackle the politically controversial problem of immigration reform. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said this month that, with the poor showing his party made among Hispanic voters in the presidential election, other Republicans should be eager to join him.

It is not surprising that Graham would be among the first to step forward in favor of comprehensive changes to the nation’s immigration laws. He was among the most vocal champions of the reform plan proposed by President George W. Bush in 2006.

That bill included a provision to legalize an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, most from Latin America, and to create a temporary worker program sought by business groups. But it also featured tougher border security and workplace enforcement measures, including an extra $4.4 billion for more border enforcement.

In the end, though, the bill fell short in the Senate with 37 Republicans opposing it. ...

While unemployment is high now, as more and more baby-boomers retire, the nation is likely to suffer a shortage of workers in key jobs. We will need more immigrant workers, not fewer.

The nation also needs to find ways to encourage the best foreign students attending U.S. colleges and universities to stay in this country and use their skills here. ...

The hard anti-immigrant stance taken by many Republicans might have appealed to some in the party’s base, but it was not a winning formula at the polling booths. Graham thinks Republicans can remain true to their values but also embrace immigration reform — and attract Hispanic voters to the GOP in the process.

We hope more of those from his side of the aisle will join like-minded Democrats to find a lasting fix to the problem of illegal immigration. It would be both good for the nation and smart politics.

We don’t have one set of election laws for Richland County and another for Lexington County and another still for Abbeville or Allendale or Greenville county.

And for good reason. Once you get past the county council, sheriff and a few (but too many) county officers, we don’t have separate elected officials for each county. Unlike the federal government, which is a creation of the states, our state is not a creation of the counties, but vice versa.

Only 12 of the 46 state Senate districts and just two of the seven that contain parts of Richland and Lexington counties are wholly contained within a single county.

All seven U.S. House members represent multiple counties, as do all 16 solicitors, 51 of the 124 S.C. House members, our two U.S. senators, the governor and the far-too-numerous state constitutional officers.

All of which means that voters have just as much stake in how well the elections are conducted in their neighboring county as in their own.

Yet we have 46 independent, county-based commissions overseeing 46 independent, county-based election agencies. Some of them do a good job. Some, as we saw this month in Richland County, not so much. ...

The Legislature sort of understands this in a 19th century kind of way. The county election commissions aren’t appointed by the county councils. Instead, as many people have learned since Richland County legislators’ hand-picked election director so thoroughly botched the Nov. 6 election, they are appointed by the legislators who represent all or part of each county.

In fact, the only references to county councils in the laws that establish the county election offices are mandates that they fund the agencies and commissions over which they have no control. Which makes this an even worse way of doing things.

If we’re going to have 46 separate election agencies, and if the counties have to fund them, the counties should control them. But we shouldn’t have 46 separate election agencies, and the counties shouldn’t fund them.

Elections should be run by the State Election Commission and paid for by the state. The state would need to maintain offices in most if not all counties to conduct the elections just as DHEC and the Department of Social Services (which used to include 46 independent county offices) maintain offices across the state. But as with those other agencies today, the local election offices should be part of the State Election Commission.

Because South Carolina isn’t a collection of 46 independent counties; it’s a single state.

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